Give people your attention

- In my book, "The Myth of Multitasking," I talk about the three effects of multitasking: things take longer, you make more mistakes, and your increase your stress levels. But there's also a fourth effect that's critical to understand. When I speak to large audiences, I do a little exercise that you might want to try in your next team meeting. It's simple. Have one person talk to someone else for 30 seconds while that other person multitasks on them, plays with their phone, looks at their papers. In the end, I ask everyone who was just speaking and being multitasked upon, in one word, how did that make you feel? The one word I hear almost every time is unimportant. Imagine that. You wake up, you start your day, you go downstairs, you see a loved one and you say, hi, you're unimportant, what are you going to do today? Or someone calls your office and you answer and say, thanks for calling XYZ Company where you're unimportant, how can I help you? You would never do that, and yet, we do that. Whenever we multitask on a human being, we're communicating to them that they are less important than whatever it is we're doing at that time. So, how do we avoid doing this? I'm going to give you a few tips. Number one is, make the commitment that when you're talking to a human being, you focus on them. It's one thing to multitask on watching TV and playing with your phone at the same time; it's completely different to do it on a human being. They'll always tell. Number two is, manage people's expectations and create a schedule. In other words, let people know that you are going to listen to them and you do want to hear their questions, and here is a time when you can sit down and talk to each other, face-to-face or on the phone, and give each other 100% of your attention. Number three is to remove distractions. Occasionally you're going to see things that make it hard to focus on people. Personally, whenever I'm on a phone call with one of my coaching clients, I turn off my computer monitor and get up and walk away. That makes it easier to focus on the conversation. And fourth, when talking face-to-face, always make eye contact. That idea of always having to look someone in the eye keeps you from looking down at whatever device you might have at hand. When you focus on human beings, you actually stand apart, you're different because you communicate to people that they're important, and that's a powerful differentiator in a world that's addicted to the myth of multitasking.